Uxbridge: the Antinomies of defeat
Labour lost the Uxbridge by-election on Thursday by less than 500 votes. Before a recount the psephological view seemed to be that Labour would win and that there was only an ‘outside chance’ of a Tory victory.
Unfortunately that happened. The Tories claimed that a campaign focused on the extension of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to Outer London had got traction. No doubt petrolheads with rather clapped out four wheel drives were concerned as more importantly were those workers who do unsocial hours and have to drive to work in cars they can barely afford.
ULEZ which was originally a Tory policy imposed on London would mean that any petrol car over 17 years old would need to be scrapped. So why not pay compensation? The Government is not interested though it is (probably) Labour policy.
The whole point of ULEZ is to reduce air pollution which kills people. Given I live in the highly polluted area of Tottenham I back it.
Labour had imposed a candidate and after the result the Chair of the Uxbridge Labour Party resigned clearly unhappy with Starmer.
Starmer taking his cue as too often from the Tories blamed ULEZ for Labour’s defeat and attacked London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Starmer is a weak leader and this just underlined it. Hard right Tories are weaponsising any environment related issue in yet another Culture War
In the days before the election Starmer had announced he would keep the cap on benefit at two children (which Labour is opposed to)for fiscal reasons. He also turned up at an event with Blair where pictures showed both men smiling at one another.
Whatever view you may have of all that it doesn’t seem particularly competent behaviour in a by-election week.
Sadiq Khan made the point that Uxbridge had not been Labour in his memory and that of course is why Johnson was despatched to the seat when the hirsute Tory MP John Randall stood down. The Tories knew Johnson would be a hopeless MP but also that this was unlikely to see the seat lost.
Of course Labour could have won. The 190 votes Count Binface got may not have gone to Starmer but since he suggested the door was open to the left to leave Labour, a good number of left votes in Uxbridge may have gone elsewhere or nowhere.
The whole point about Labour winning elections, which is urgently needed to boot the Tories out, is that a broad church electoral coalition is needed on voting days, certainly in marginal seats, to achieve it.
This apparently is beyond the comprehension of Starmer and has never interested the one-dimensional cabal of Labour First/Labour to Win that surrounds him,
Fortunately opposition to the Tories is not confined to the electoral ambitions of Starmer such as they are.
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